2. Outdoor Occupations—Gardens for children. Games. Athletics. Riding and walking parties, picnics, etc. Study of birds. Nature classes (butterflies, etc.).
3. Indoor Occupations—Classes in carpentry, weaving, and sewing. Musical classes, the children's chorus, the children's orchestra. Pantomimes, plays, and dances.
4. Public Provision for Children—Museums for children. Public playgrounds. The children's room in the public library. Exhibitions of pictures for children. Illustrated lectures in the public school.
Books to Consult—G. Stanley Hall: Educational Problems. L. H. Gulick: Children of the Century. Mangold: Child Problems. Jekyll: Children and Gardens.
Women's clubs should definitely interest themselves in the children of the city or country, and do for them what is not done by the public. The value of playgrounds and gardens in cities, and of children's classes in sloyd or manual training in the country, cannot be over-estimated. Musical training is also valuable, not merely for its esthetic results; and children's choruses, with cantatas and oratorios, may be most interesting. Motion dances and national dances are easily taught, the latter especially in towns and cities where different nationalities are represented in the population.
VII—PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS
1. Civic—The court-house: the proper architecture—simplicity and dignity. Improving an old structure. The grounds. Decorations. The jail: what are the present local conditions? Is improvement possible? Modern ideas of imprisonment and the housing of prisoners.
2. Useful—The station: coöperation between the railway company and the citizens. Cleanliness, paint, sanitation, lawns, and flower-gardens. The water-works: decorative possibilities in the plant. Fountains and flower-beds.
3. Literary—The public library: the value of a lecture-hall. The local lyceum. Loan exhibitions. Reading-rooms: importance in the absence of a library. Making the place attractive.
4. Monumental—Improvement in public taste. Necessity of a committee to pass judgment on proposed memorials. Superfluous monuments. Statuary and tablets. The soldier's monument. The local historical society. The cemetery: the ideal location, ownership, and control. Trust funds for perpetual care. Beauty and ugliness in stones. Trees, lakes, flowers.